Rand Paul’s Israel Strategy

The Kentucky senator attempts to satisfy evangelicals while remaining anti-interventionist—but can he do both?

Usually Republicans are suspected of harboring presidential aspirations when they speak at a Lincoln Day Dinner near Des Moines or sample the corned beef hash at a Manchester diner. Rand Paul got the political press’s attention by taking a dip in the Dead Sea.

“This trip to meet with Israelis, Arabs and Palestinians is absolutely the first step in his 2016 White House campaign,” evangelical leader David Lane, who organized the visit, obliged in an interview with the Washington Times.

Paul held a conference call with intrigued reporters upon his return from Israel. He defended Israeli national sovereignty, ripped the “arrogance” of American policymakers who presume to know more about local conditions than the people who lived there, praised the country as a strong democratic ally.

“There is this perception out there that because I’m in favor of cutting foreign aid I’m not a friend to Israel,” the freshman senator from Kentucky said. “But there is more than one way to be a friend to Israel.”

Business Insider called it Paul’s “overnight transformation into a pro-Israel defense hawk.” Pat Buchanan biographer Tim Stanley asked in the Telegraph if Paul was a “born again Zionist.” Some longtime supporters of Paul’s father were dismayed by his Israel rhetoric and his reported meetings with national security hawks before joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

We’ve heard some of this before. After winning the Republican senatorial nomination in 2010, Paul huddled with Bill Kristol, Tom Donnelly, and Dan Senor, described by GQ as “three prominent neocons who’d been part of an effort to defeat him during the primary.” Was the younger Paul already selling out?

After being sworn into the Senate, Paul introduced a budget that zeroed out all foreign aid, including for Israel. He sought to de-authorize the Iraq War. He opposed the Patriot Act. He proposed amendments to sanctions bills for Iran and Syria emphasizing that these bills did not constitute an authorization of force.

Just in the last three months, Paul sought to expand Fourth Amendment protections under the Bush-era warrantless surveillance program and Sixth Amendment guarantees under the National Defense Authorization Act’s terror-detention provisions. When he failed, he protested loudly and voted against both bills.

Speaking to reporters last week, Paul made clear that he was still ultimately opposed to all foreign aid and skeptical of foreign military adventurism. And he has compiled one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate, even when it has left him in the minority.

Recent polling suggests a majority of Republicans is at least open to retrenchment. According to the Pew Research Center, 53 percent of GOP voters want America less involved in Middle Eastern political change—not as noninterventionist as Democrats or particularly independents, but still nearly 20 points more than the percentage of Republicans who picked “more involved.”

Arguments for foreign-policy restraint have failed to gain traction in the Republican Party because of three perceptions of the conservatives making them: namely, that they are hostile to Israel, indifferent to American national security, and naïve about brutal foreign regimes. Paul is aiming to correct these perceptions while emphasizing his common ground with the GOP and the broader conservative movement.

That’s why Paul has focused on cutting foreign aid to Middle Eastern despots, who also happen to be virulently anti-Israel. It’s why he talks about missile defense to protect American cities from attack. And it’s why he observes that Israelis aren’t burning American flags.

More hawkish conservatives may be noticing Paul’s comments, but they are aimed at the Republican rank-and-file: evangelical well-wishers of Israel, primary voters who could be convinced that our overseas interventions are bad policy but not that the Muslim Brotherhood bodes well for secular democracy.

Paul may in the process repel those who are genuinely hostile to Israel or who dabble in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. But will Don Black’s financial contribution really be missed? There will also be Ron Paul voters and donors without such noxious motives who will nevertheless be troubled by these overtures. They will be harder to replace.

This strategy carries a risk of failure, as both sides of the burgeoning conservative foreign policy debate could cool to Paul. But the old approaches have already failed, or at least reached the end of where they can take the antiwar right.

There is indeed more than one way to be a friend to Israel—and perhaps more than one way to be the spokesman of a less bellicose conservative foreign policy, too.

W. James Antle III is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a contributing editor to The American Conservative.Follow @jimantle

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33 Responses to Rand Paul’s Israel Strategy

This guy has mostly the right ideas in my opinion. He will never be president though, not because of his political views, but because the Republicans can never win against the demographics that America has now got, regardless who the Democrat is. It would be better that he never runs for president, it will damage him, he can do more good by what he is doing now.

AS Ron Paul has said; “Rand is his own man”…..and I don’t think all of his father’s ardent supporters (myself included) would demand Rand follow anyone’s compass but his own. And to be a friend to Israel- or any other nation -means more than turning a blind eye to their sins. See how he votes; more than anything else….

If Rand maintains his non-interventionist stand and doesn’t actually espouse any neocon policies, then I doubt he’ll lose many of the “Ron Paul voters and donors without such noxious motives.” Those folks are better able than most to recognize a principled stand.

And if he’s angling for a presidential run, I would hope that Rand is smart enough to realize that the comments and votes he already has on record are more than enough to (dishonestly) paint him as anti-Israel, or isolationist, or both and more besides.

I found this essay to be somewhat enlightening due to the fact that I find Rand Paul to be one of the few senators in the United States that seems to have a genuine respect for their title.

With that being said, I find that the one of the problems in being extremely active with Israel is this notion of “anti-Semitism.” I would not classify myself as an anti-Semite, but I think it is not wrong for people to actually challenge criticisms that we might have of Israel’s policies, especially those that are directed towards the state of Palestine. No state should be above questioning, not even the United States of America.

It seems that Rand Paul has discovered that the line between being a supporter of Israel and a noninterventionist might not be completely within the lines of today’s GOP. It is refreshing to see the numbers that you have shared with us, but the only issue is that today’s GOP is being run by evangelical neoconservatives that seem to have no problem supporting a state that can stand on its own and has for quite some time.

This example is quite reminiscent in comparison to Chuck Hagel’s nomination for the Secretary of Defense. The power of the Israel lobby is well known and in resisting their influences, it shows the American people that there are still people who would like to return to our Founding Principles and be a domestic power before being a foreign power.

At first I agreed with Daniel Larison that Rand Paul was playing a losing game, but now I think I understand what he’s trying to do. He’s targeting evangelicals, yes, but he’s not trying to outbid the mainstream Republicans on being pro-Israel. He presumably knows he can’t do that. He’s just trying to remove an obstacle, the “not a friend of Israel” obstacle. In other words, he’s not expecting to win Christian Zionist votes on the Israel issue; he’s trying to ensure that he doesn’t lose votes on that issue. Anyway, that’s what I think is the most likely explanation now. It seems like a reasonable strategy.

Maybe the press has it wrong. Just maybe he has no deliberate angle or alterior. Maybe his visit clarified for Israel and himself what his position is and perhaps, as with all foreign relations they happen in real time and opposed to a completed manifesto.

A press blurb alone does not a policy position make. Especially about Israel

Senator Rand Paul,
“The answers need to come from the participants who live on the ground in these areas.”

Also, Senator Rand Paul’s position, “the opinion of Netanyahu in 1996,” was that Israel would be stronger if it could one day cut the strings.

Senator Rand Paul has often repeated that Israel could kickstart a more piecemeal peace process by easing trade restrictions on Palestinians and has suggested ways to improve trade with the Palestinian Authority, Gaza and Israel to raise the living standard of the Palestinians and give them a bigger stake in peace.

Antle’s “reporting” is pathetic. Whatever happened to that meeting with Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. Mysteriously, it has disappeared from any discussion of the trip. There is a single news account, coming not from Sen. Paul but from the Palestinians, see here:

Rand Paul’s office denies this account — which says the good “anti-interventionist” Senator threatened them with sanctions if they participated in the UN in any way — but they refuse to say what did happen at that meeting.

Antle didn’t even think to ask them — or did he?

It doesn’t seem all that “presidential” for Sen. Paul to go over there and only mention his dealings with the Israelis. And if he thinks “non-intervention” means supplying Israel with billions in military equipment while they “settle” Greater Israel and invade their neighbors, he is a bigger fool than even I thought.

Can’t wait to see how he votes on the Hagel nomination: that will be the clincher.

Oh, and I hope he had a good time with the crazies like Joe Farah, the birther king, and that lady who thinks gay marriage will lead some people to want to marry the Eiffel Tower (not kidding!).

Senator Rand Paul came here, he said, with suggestions about how to break the massively complicated Middle East problems into smaller segments, to be solved one by one.

Senator Rand Paul said his suggestion for less Israeli restriction on trade between the West Bank, governed by elected leaders of the Palestine Liberation organization, and Gaza, governed by leaders of the even more militantly anti-Israel Hamas, were greeted skeptically by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and but more warmly by both the Palestinian president and the Jordanian king.

I will be happy if Sen. Paul, or any GOP candidate, keeps his personal opinions on Israel to himself, but insists, as his father has, that the United States should give no aid, military or otherwise, to any foreign nation, but should be open to free trade with all.

National Security should be defined as the security, physical and fiscal, of the United States, its territories and possessions, its property and its citizens, but not the security of its friends or the property of its citizens.

If we can serve as a beacon of freedom for others to emulate, we will do the world no greater service. If we can serve as an honest broker to help mediate the disputes that arise among other nations, it will be in the best of our national traditions, but it should not be our business to engage in or fund the fulfillment or policing of such agreements.

We have spent up to tens of billions of dollars a year for more than thirty years paying Egypt and Israel to make nice with each other, yet the hostility between their peoples has not diminished one whit. We are fools to continue a hopeless task. There will be no peace in the region unless the people who live there pay the cost of making peace and bear the burden of failure. Real friends do not assist their friends in continuing dangerous and self-destructive behaviors, or the oppression of others, and that should be the cardinal rule for the United States in nurturing the friendship of other nations.

If we hear words to this effect from Senator Paul, I will be his enthusiastic supporter.

Justin, it sounds to me as though, assuming the source is accurate in it’s report, Paul wasn’t making any “threats” but was simply communicating what he believes the American government’s intentions to be, quite apart from his own policy preferences.

I’d certainly love to hear more about what happened in that meeting, but if you intend to go after Paul based on that single report, then yours must be one of the most comprehensively self-defeating stances I’ve seen. Try not to be so allergic to potential allies.

Rand Paul is on the right side of the arguments against debt, war , Federal Reserve, guns, police state, non-intervention and he is an excellent candidate. He will bring many great ideas to the table just as his Father has done. Rand is just much more likely to get mainstream support.

On Thursday November 1st,2012, Abbas had given an unusually moderate interview to Channel 2 News, in which he called for a renewal of peace talks with no preconditions and stated that Palestinians have no territorial claims beyond the 1967 lines.

Rand Paul is a politician. He wants to get elected. He will do whatever it takes, like any other politician. Politics is dirty. Grow up folks. Chuck Hagel in Nebraska, could be independent. Nebraska is Catholic,Lutheran, and Methodist, not like the people in the hills of Tenn., if you know what I mean. Now that Chuck is going national, he changes for the national audience. This is politics as usual. Where is Sheldon?

True, but there’s only one way–submission–that won’t excite the vicious opposition of the ruling powers in Israel and their American puppets. In Israel, at any rate, those powers will only get stronger between now and 2016.

With Bibi winning another term and the polls in Israel showing a drift away from a Palistinian State, the best we might hope for would be to cut the foreign aid off and stop financing this despicable land grab. As a Christian, I’ll never understand how so many Evangelicals could abandon their fellow Christians in the West Bank. Also, the Israelis have absolutely no intention of giving up any land in the West Bank, only feigned interest in negotiating. Rand’s methods may be our best chance at extricating ourselves from this mess. It is my belief that our blind financial and political support of Israel is the starting point for Islamic hatred for our country, with its resultant blowback, and our loss of freedom in this country.
Cary

Cary, the Catholic church, under the current Pontiff, has not abandoned the brothers and sisters in Palestine. Lutheran World Relief also works in Palestine. “Sabeel”, Anglican Church and others, remember the brothers and sisters as well. “3 May 2012 – The General Conference of the United Methodist Church decided yesterday to call for an explicit boycott of all Israeli companies “operating in the occupied Palestinian territories,” knowing that this constitutes the absolute majority of Israeli corporations. This and the overwhelming support for the “Kairos Palestine” document and its call “for an end to military occupation and human rights violations through nonviolent actions,” which include boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), will pave the way forward for further action by the Church to hold Israel accountable for its colonial and apartheid regime.” The Presbyterian church’s position is similar to the UMC. The brothers and sisters in Palestine have not been forgotten.

Maybe its smart politics, but I have to ask the question “WHO SPEAKS FOR THE PALESTINIANS”? Why should an American politician have to support or denounce Israel’s right to defend itself? Israel is Israel and the United States is the United States. I don’t want to call it pandering to the evangelicals, but I would much rather see the evangelicals educated about how Zionist Jews murdered Palestinians both Muslim and Christian in 1948, stole their land, destroyed their Mosques and Churches, destroyed or occupied their homes, stole their wealth and agricultural lands and made nearly a million people refugees.

Yes its ancient history for Americans but for Arabs (both Christian and Muslim) it might have just happened yesterday.

There is a growing realization that the time has come to cut Israel loose. We can do it as we profess eternal friendship or we can do it as we complain about the staggering cost of defending and bankrolling it; the important thing is that we do it, and in doing so manage the threat that its outlaw nukes and other WMDs pose to Europe and its Middle Eastern neighbors.

I am astonished that folks continue to defend what Rand Paul is saying and doing re our policy in the Middle East and North Africa. He is just another politician on the make and clearly as ignorant as most congressmen. God help us all if he is the great white hope for 2016.

I’m willing to give Rand Paul time to find his feet. But anyone capable of saying so stupid as that an attack on Israel is like an attack on the United States is off to a very bad start, and he should be removed from any committees to do with foreign affairs.

It’s called “Strategy”, people. No one can win the Presidency of the United States coming across as an out-and-out enemy of Israel (and neither should they — our policy toward Israel should be one of non-interventionism, not animosity). Ron Paul, bless the man, didn’t or couldn’t understand strategy if it up and smacked him across the face, which is why a lot of folks were confused as to what exactly his position was concerning Israel. Rand isn’t making that same mistake. I have to laugh at folks who think Rand is a sellout — name me one vote where he’s sold out the Ron Paul liberty movement. Just one. Keep in mind a meaningless endorsement of Romney doesn’t count.

I don’t think Rand Paul is prepared to defend American taxpayers paying for Russians to retire to new homes on the West Bank. Paying not just in money that we don’t have, but in the safety of our cities and the blood of our soldiers?

I was so hoping that Rand Paul would be his father’s heir, but he is not–on foreign policy or anything else. He seems to be just another partisan hack all too willing to pander to whatever demographic that Fox news or the GOP thinks exists out there.

He embarrassed me and every other thinking Republican when last week he called for President Obama’s resignation because Beyonce’ allegedly lip-synced the national anthem. Seriously?

Also last week, in a transparent effort to get a sound bite, he opened his questioning of Hillary Clinton over the Benghazi flap by saying he would have fired Hillary Clinton if he were her boss. Then, after hearing her testimony, he had to admit that she had some valid points. Nice work Mr. Paul. That’s first class D.C. buffoonery.

Unfortunately, he reminds me of my own hometown embarrassment –Louie Gohmert. Next thing you know, Mr. Paul will be sounding the alarm for the likes of “terror babies” and claiming members of Obama’s cabinet are really shills for the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, they will continue to weaken the republic by promoting interventionism and supporting the NDAA.